


Doesn't Have To Be Hearts and Flowers

by BrosleCub12



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Chocolate, Domestic Fluff, Family, Friendship/Love, Gen, John is Perfect, Parenthood, Post-Season/Series 04, Sherlock is a Good Parent, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 03:47:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17841863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrosleCub12/pseuds/BrosleCub12
Summary: On Valentine’s Day, John Watson is a man on a mission.





	Doesn't Have To Be Hearts and Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Here, have a belated, fluffy Valentines' fic to celebrate this damp Monday and the fact this author got a lot of RL admin done. As per, _Sherlock_ is not mine.

* * *

On Valentine’s Day, John Watson is a man on a mission.

He quickly, quietly leaves Baker Street that morning, sending a hasty text to Mike Stamford – _Hi mate, where’s this chocolate place you mentioned last week?_ – and comes back just as quietly an hour or so later after trawling through Covent Garden for the address Mike cheerfully texted through to him, satisfied from both the errand and from strolling the streets of London as he always is, especially places he’s never really been to before. Harry used to spend a lot of time in Covent Garden with Clara; now she avoids it like the plague, although she half-heartedly mentions sometimes taking John there for lunch, something they both know will never happen. Harry cannot – _will_ not – face reminders of a happier life she lived with the person she ended up leaving behind.

(It’s selfish, it’s so selfish, down to the bones of it, but he looks into Harry’s face, flushed with too much drink, giddy and refusing to touch the ground, a vodka bottle in hand and he thinks, _that could have been me._ Thinks of the way Harry lashes out when people try to help her, breaks things, breaks bonds, their own sorely tested and hanging by a thread simply because they’re related and the thought settles, like words filling in cement: _That **was** me). _

Sherlock is still intent on his computer when John returns, trailing up the stairs with his bag in hand, whistling slightly under his breath, careful not to disturb. There’s a new case brewing; among the various Valentines’ celebrations, a young music-teacher is being followed by a stranger on a bike, and she’s frightened. They’re receiving weekly updates from her on the situation; it worries John, but it keeps Sherlock busy and despite the circumstances, it’s good to see him occupied. It’s harder when he’s not; harder still to see Sherlock unhappy with boredom.

He pulls out the little box with the chocolate inside – eight little chocolate skulls, all containing salted caramel, all grinning widely, obliviously and waiting to be eaten – and places it by Sherlock’s elbow, squeezes his arm briefly and heads off to make a cup of tea and read the paper.

Thirty-eight minutes later (John counts) Sherlock shifts, gives a quick, startled breath and there’s the indisputable sound of rattling; of something being picked up and shaken.

‘John?’

With a nonchalant air of _oh-sorry-are-you-addressing-me,_ John lowers the newspaper. Sherlock has twisted around in the chair, holding the box of skulls in his hand.

‘What are these?’

‘Treats,’ John rejoins shortly. Sherlock blinks; John can practically hear the words _does not compute, does not compute,_ the little blue circle all computers have, spinning in the centre of his forehead.

Then it breaks and Sherlock sputters. ‘Yes, but – _why?’_ It comes out softer than intended, more curious than flabbergasted and John feels momentarily, oddly hurt by such a question and not even _entirely_ on his own behalf.

‘Happy Valentines,’ he says shortly, with a decisive shrug and hides behind his newspaper, gives Sherlock time and space to think it over.

‘Oh,’ he hears.

‘Um,’ follows that, a bit of a rarity.

And finally, slightly strangled: _‘Thankyou.’_

John gives a gruff little wave of the hand in return – _glad he’s still got **some** manners, at least_ – and settles down to read.

*

They share the chocolates that evening – once Sherlock has got over the strange notion of someone giving him a gift for Valentines’ Day – in their chairs by the fireplace. Rosie gets one too, after she grows curious over what chocolatey treats her fathers have the sheer audacity to be eating without her, and totters over from her bundle of toys on the sofa to have a look. Sherlock shows her; Rosie stares at the chocolate skull he’s holding out, face deliberately thoughtful, before raising her head to look up at the mantlepiece and raising her little fist with determination, pointing at the real skull.

‘Look, Yorick! _Yorick,_ Daddy!’ She looks between them, excited; claps her hands at her own cleverness.

Sherlock leans forward, acquiescent and patient in equal measure. ‘Yes, Rosie. _Yorick.’_ It’s said with a glare shot John’s way, for putting such persistent, cliched, Shakespearean ideas into their little girl’s head; John just smirks, a hand coming out to stroke Rosie’s hair before she puts her hand on Sherlock’s knees, sensing his resigned irritation, and bouncing up and down.

‘Yorick, Yorick, Yoooooorick! Please?’ She puts her head to the side, going from shrieking banshee to adorable child in the space of 0.3 seconds, shooting him a big toothy grin. Sherlock surrenders, giving her a skull that he helps her to eat in two bites and receives a big, sticky kiss for his trouble.

John watches them both quietly over his tea: the way that Sherlock offers his cheek for the big, not-quite-clean _‘MmmmmmmmmWHAH!’_ that Rosie plants on him, before hoisting herself determinedly up onto his lap.

‘Play bridge, please,’ she demands. Sherlock and John exchange a long-suffering look, John’s eyes widening in resignation and Sherlock’s own crinkling at the corners.

Then, as one, they both raise their legs, and rest them in each other’s chairs, side by side, forming the afore-requested bridge. She _did_ say ‘please,’ after all.

Delighted, Rosie starts to scramble up and down, finding her way over the collection of legs onto John’s lap, beaming at him adorably and then promptly scrambling back across to Sherlock, panting happily like a puppy as she goes. They both lean forwards, hands and arms framing the edges of their thighs to prevent potential falls, but Rosie’s balance is excellent, rather like her parents’; she disregards Sherlock’s hands reaching out to steady her as she reaches him. From the safety of his lap, she claps her hands again and waves across to John.

‘Hiiiii, Daddy!’

He smiles, waves back, grins like the complete idiot Sherlock accuses him of being as he looks at the pair of them: his daughter and his detective. ‘Hello. Hello, darling.’

*

(‘What’s he like?’ asked the kind girl with glasses who was working behind the till at the chocolate shop that morning. John didn’t answer immediately; was too busy staring at the incredible abundance of chocolate treats laid around him and the sheer colour of the displays; the usual stuff like bars and buttons and shapes were all there, of course, but also the most complicated-looking cakes with intricate patterns, figures of dancing ladies in fish-net tights, animal figurines that could have passed for garden statues – all made of chocolate and coloured beautifully with sugar. It was like the Tooth Fairy’s private, hidden chamber; almost seemed like the kind of thing Sherlock might have created himself (with Mycroft’s money), had his interest lain with sweets rather than grisly murders and forensic science.

But then, he _was_ here for Sherlock’s benefit, after all.

‘Well. Rather mad, for one thing,’ he had responded to the query, distracted, still gazing around the shop in sheer disbelief. ‘Really quite posh; that’s what my late wife used to call him, a posh boy. Pretty rude, when he wants to be.’

The shop girl had giggled a little at the description and John had smiled too, softening as he thought of Sherlock.

‘Kind,’ he told her, the word resplendent on his tongue because it was true, no question about it. ‘Lovely, even. And actually, a – _brilliant_ father-figure, you wouldn’t believe it.’ He found himself chuckling as he said it, more incredulous than anything else. ‘Some – some idiot calling themselves a fan of his left a comment on my blog a while ago saying that he’d be the first to throw a crying infant out of the window, but you know what, if they think that, then they really don’t know him at all. The sad thing is, I would have thought that myself once, but now I know I was wrong. I was wrong about a lot of stuff.’ He huffed into the sunny space that he’d made his confessional, surrounded by sugar-flowers and butterflies and what-have-you; it was ridiculous, should have been, but that was the way of it.

‘I was wrong about everything.’ He glanced back at the shop girl, who didn’t seem to mind being taken into such strange confidence – probably just extremely good customer service training – and he shrugged his shoulders, shrugged off all the worry and expectation and the _people will talk._ People had _always_ talked, anyway.

‘He’s family,’ he told her. ‘And he’s the best man I know.’).

*

‘No-one’s even given me a Valentine before,’ Sherlock remarks later that evening, after they’ve finally got Rosie off to sleep, knocking the edge off her sugar-high with a story (or three). John watches him make tea, leaning against the counter with a yawn.

‘First time for everything.’ It comes out more as gabbled nonsense through his tiredness, but whatever. John’s a full-time parent and doctor who spends his free time keeping Sherlock’s head attached to his shoulders, it’s allowed.

Sherlock gazes at him, carefully pouring tea into mugs. For some reason, he’s gone the whole hog and used the teapot. _Such a posh boy,_ John thinks fondly, meeting his gaze without fear and watches him stir in the milk and the sugar, his hands, strong and shapely – hands that hold Rosie’s own when they cross roads and walk down the street; that rake through a crime-scene, looking for the lost clue that will bring another vicious murderer to justice; that held John close and upright on the day that his walls finally came down in a tumble of tears – utterly seamless, as ever.

‘Why?’ Sherlock asks again, meeting his eyes; not pushing, just genuinely curious. John shrugs back.

‘Why not?’ he says it with a shameless, impudent sort of grin. ‘Anyway, you like caramel.’

‘Well, yes,’ Sherlock agrees, ‘with salt,’ and John nods at the analogy; generously sweet and sticky and gooey, with just the right amount of kick underneath. A certain zeal, tempered by ferocity, tenacity; the will to survive.

‘Seems like you,’ he agrees and Sherlock smiles back, openly pleased, holds out his tea. John accepts the mug, places it carefully back on the counter and moves forward to hold Sherlock instead; relishes the way his arms can wrap all the way around him like a shield; that he can do this, that he’s allowed. That Sherlock is _safe,_ and _whole,_ and that John is the lucky bugger to whom he has given his all, his friendship and kindnesses and more. That John has been permitted to see what’s beneath the prickly, stand-offish surface, given time.

If Sherlock has taught him anything, it’s to just _give_ everything – people, places, bereavement – _time._

‘I know it’s not hearts and flowers,’ he murmurs to him, over his shoulder, ‘but you are so _absolutely_ loved.’  

He squeezes him, softly so, perfectly serious and Sherlock makes a noise – a sigh at the sentimentality, perhaps, or else a gruff grunt, or that strange little laugh he evokes when pleased, or possibly just a small whimper. John rests his cheek against his shoulder as Sherlock’s hands warmly settle on his back, keeping him close.

It’s fine. It’s better than fine; it’s _good._

*

 

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact 1: there is a chocolate shop in Covent Garden as described above and it does sell the chocolate skulls: it's called Choccywoccydoodah, a famous branch that started in Brighton and expanded into London. Fun fact 2: I've been there three times in the past week. *Vulcan symbol*
> 
> The comment about Sherlock 'being the first to throw a crying infant of a window' was lifted directly from the Tumblr Q&A with Mofftiss last year; a frankly tasteless response to a fan-question on their part and one which I've been wanting to address in fic-form for some time.


End file.
